Reading, listening to, and questioning America... from the southern Great Plains

Obama tried the "right" thing, decides to do what's really needed

He really did want to be a centrist, a nice guy. And still is a nice guy -- at heart. It just took him a while to realize that Republicans were no longer on the right, politically or morally. They had no grasp of "right,"no matter how you define it. They fell off the edge years ago with war, torture, spying on fellow Americans, governmental corruption, and forming a dangerous alliance with rich radicals and transnational corporate interests. They are well beyond right and now have turned inward on themselves, fighting for control of their own diminishing band of constituents. Out of touch. Out of mind.

Next step for Obama: win back a disillusioned left once again.

President Obama is changing gears on the economy, highlighting income
inequality as a growing problem in advance of pitched fall battles with
congressional Republicans over funding the government and raising the
debt ceiling.

The
focus is intended to make it easier for Obama to argue that new taxes
on the rich — and not cuts to social spending — should be imposed to
lower the deficit.

It also dovetails with Obama’s call for
Congress to raise the federal $7.25 minimum wage and to end the
automatic spending cuts known as sequestration. ...The Hill

And finally a return to the moral argument: it's the right thing to do. The real "right."

“This growing inequality is not just morally wrong, it’s bad economics,”
Obama said in remarks last week in Galesburg, Ill., where he began a
new push on the economy. ...The Hill

Whew! After years of treating Republicans like a legit political party, we may be getting our senses -- and our leadership -- back.